Film critic Roger Ebert dead at 70

Film critic Roger Ebert has died, the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper said in a Twitter posting on Thursday.

Film critic Roger Ebert arrives to attend the Webby Awards in New York in this file photo taken June 14, 2010.Credit: Getty Images

Film critic Roger Ebert has died, the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper said in a Twitter posting on Thursday.

Ebert, 70, who had lost his ability to speak and eat after surgeries for thyroid and salivary gland cancer in 2002 and 2003, said earlier this week that his cancer had returned. [embedgallery id= 130566]

"It is with a heavy heart we report that legendary film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) has passed away," the newspaper where Ebert worked for decades said on Twitter.

"There is a hole that can't be filled. One of the greats has left us. Roger Ebert has passed away at the age of 70," the Chicago Sun-Times added.

Wednesday, Ebert announced he was once again battling cancer again and that he planned to scale back his writing by taking a "leave of presence" from his more than four-decade career.

"I must slow down now, which is why I'm taking what I like to call 'a leave of presence,'" Ebert said in a blog entry.

He gained national prominence with the late Gene Siskel on the television show "At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert," coining the phrase "Two Thumbs Up," until Siskel's death in 1999. He later teamed with critic Richard Roeper but quit for health reasons.